By Joe Leibovich
Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest ambush heavy semi-documentary Bruno walks a very fine line indeed. Bruno is either an insightful exposé on homophobia, or is an excuse for Cohen to play a broad brushed stereotypical gay character. On the other hand, it may be both.
For anyone who saw Cohen’s last film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the format of Bruno will not be unfamiliar. In this outing,Cohen portrays Bruno, a decidedly homosexual star of an Austrian fashion show who falls on hard times, and heads to Los Angeles to find fame. The setup is merely that. A set up. It provides a framework for Cohen to interview and ambush celebrities, everyday people, and even international political figures and confront them with the Bruno character to simply see how they react. As in Borat, the reactions create moments on the screen that alternate between hilarious and appalling; sometimes both at the same time.
Homosexuality – and peoples’ intolerance of it – is the key focus of Cohen’s shtick this time around. Although it would not surprise me to learn that some of the situations in this movie were set up, many of them felt very real. And there were times, in places as far-flung as the Middle East and Arkansas, where it feels that Cohen was literally putting his life on the line to further this project.
Some reactions that Bruno garners are perfectly understandable. A focus group shown the ridiculous and pornographic talk show pitch Bruno makes to a network reacts with disbelief and disgust. A local talk show audience who believes that Bruno obtained an African baby in exchange for an iPod are reasonably outraged. And politician Ron Paul’s reaction to Bruno’s sexual advances during a break in an interview can be forgiven, even though the reaction exposes an apparent homophobia that one would not expect.
But it’s the reactions that truly expose peoples’ horrendous nature that make the most impact. Parents of would be infant stars reacting with callous indifference to their children’s well-being in interview questions posed by Bruno are shocking. And there is one sequence, set during an ultimate fighting championship type match, in which the raw hatred spewing off the film is beyond disturbing. And this is where it is apparent that Cohen is making a point. He is out to shine a light on bigotry that is still very much alive and well.
Some critics will say that Cohen is being hypocritical. He is using a character that is outrageously stereotypical. He himself is making stereotypical gay jokes throughout the film with his depiction of Bruno. The opening few minutes alone are filled with the type of material you would expect to have been written by a rampant homophobe, and there are jokes throughout the film made by Bruno which would normally be dismissed as gay-bashing. But Cohen gets away with it because it is so apparent that his mission in this film is not only to entertain – which it does – but also to expose people’s ridiculous prejudices. In this regard, you have to admire Cohen’s genius. The guy is using stereotypes to expose how society reacts to various groups. It’s a pretty nifty trick.
What Borat did for xenophobia and American centrism, Bruno does for homophobia.
Make no mistake, Bruno is an incredibly offensive movie, regardless of whether or not you are homophobic. There is full frontal male nudity, sexual activity, racial insensitivity, and certainly adult language. This movie is unapologetically R rated, and if you don’t want that, don’t go. There is an excellent chance many, many people will be offended by this film and could walk out on it within the first 15 minutes. And, let’s be fair, some of the people who are ambushed in this movie aren’t necessarily reacting out of homophobia as much as they are being confronted with inappropriate displays of sexuality when it is not welcome. There are a few cheap laughs on that front, but that can be forgiven.
Because when you cut through the raunchiness, the silliness, and the blatant effort by Cohen to be as offensive as possible, you end up with a pretty smart examination of cultural tolerance and, at times, staggering ignorance.
But don’t let all this highfalutin talk of messages and shining a light on the world’s follies and hangups given the way of what Bruno really is. It is simply hilarious. There are several scenes in this movie, which will cause you to laugh until you are out of breath or until tears roll down your cheeks. So, if you can deal with the very adult (yet incredibly juvenile) things you’ll see in here in Bruno, you’ll get a movie that not only makes you laugh harder than most any other film you’ll see this year, you will also get a chance to see a legitimate exploration of issues ranging from homophobia to celebrity culture to how hummus may, at the end of the day, solve the Middle East peace crisis.
Not bad for an hour and a half movie featuring a ludicrously stereotypical character with an Austrian accent.
On the report card, I give Bruno a B+.
In the era of Judd Apatow, we know there is a market for R-rated comedies, and that that such movies have the potential to be hilarious. Todd Phillips’ The Hangover makes that abundantly clear.
Concepts don’t come any higher than this movie. Doug, a groom-to-be (played by Justin Bartha) and two of his two buddies Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms) along with his future brother-in-law, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) head to Vegas for a bachelor party. Unfortunately, the boys wake up from their apparently crazy night with no memories of the evening, wicked hangovers, a tiger in the bathroom, and a missing groom.
The rest of the movie involves the guys trying to piece together the events of the evening so they can hopefully find Doug. You’d think the whole Vegas thing would be played out by now. Well, sir and/or madam, you would be wrong. The Hangover takes the whole what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas thing and takes into a whole new direction.
What’s ingenious about this movie is that mystery. We follow along with these guys, who are as clueless as we are as to what happened, and, bit by hilarious bit, we all learn what happened in those few crazy hours. I do not want to give away a single solution to any of the puzzles, because The Hangover doesn’t cheat. It gives us plausible (well, ok, relatively) reasons for just about everything. (There’s one exception, that, perhaps, I missed). And, the unravelling of the riddles is truly engaging. The Hangover works because it is very much an R-rated movie with nudity, drugs, foul language and violence surrounded by an incredibly smart and funny script.
The cast does a commendable job. Cooper is probably the lead in this ensemble piece, and we buy him as the wild married man out for a weekend of debauchery. His charisma shines through, and I completely bought into his character. Ed Helms is dead-on as a whipped, uptight dentist dealing with a shrew of a girlfriend and a missing tooth. While Bartha does fine, his role is relatively thankless. Much like that of every single woman in this movie. Let’s be clear, The Hangover is a buddy picture, and the female roles are, at best, superficial. The real find in The Hangover is Galifianakis. The comic (who has appeared in The Comedians of Comedy) practically steals this movie as the somewhat odd Alan. He is over the top and understated at the same time. It’s really an amazing performance, and is absolutely hysterical.
Director Todd Phillips is not a novice in this arena. He also directed 2003′s R-rated Old School. He seems to know exactly how to let his cast shine without over directing the movie, while also making a visually interesting movie. This guy knows how to direct an adult comedy, and with The Hangover, he is arguably better at it than Apatow. The drink recipe for The Hangover takes 1 part Apatow, 1 part Old School, and 1 part Martin Scorcese’s After Hours. Stir. Enjoy.
The Hangover is a funny, very R-rated comedy. It walks that fine line between crass and crude and smart and funny admirably. For audiences who are not easily offended, and who want an interestingly structured movie filled with great laughs, you can’t do much better than The Hangover.
On the movie report card, I give The Hangover an A-.
So, now I’m going to start trying to do movie reviews. Some are from movies in theaters. Some are from DVDs. There’s no rhyme or reason to this. It’s just a matter of what I see and when I feel like writing a review.
Click here for an audio version of this review!
Woody Allen hasn’t been relevant since Mighty Aphrodite. I will not argue with you on this. Accept this as fact and move on.
This is apparent in 2008′s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, now available on DVD. Woody Allen wrote and directed this movie centering on two young women – Vicky (The Prestige’s Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) who travel to Spain for the Summer to stay with one of Vicky’s relatives. Vicky is the sensible one, who is engaged to a successful, and therefore boring, man. Cristina is more adventurous and passionate. We know this because a narrator tells us this right away. Who is this narrator? Some guy who is in no way related to anyone or anything happening in the movie.
Almost immediately upon arriving in Spain, Vicky and Cristina meet Juan Antonio (No Country for Old Men’s Javier Bardem). We know he is passionate immediately for three reasons: 1) He promptly invites Vicky and Cristina to go away with him for a weekend, 2) We hear he had a tempestuous and maybe even violent divorce with his wife, and 3) He wears a red shirt.
Of course, the women take him up on his offer, and he ultimately sleeps with one or both of them (I don’t want to be accused of spoiling the intricate and unpredictable developments). Shortly after this weekend, Cristina moves in with Juan Antonio, and Vicky marries her fiancee in Spain, where he is suddenly and conveniently able to work for the Summer. Go figure.
Enter the ex-wife. About halfway through the movie, Juan Antonio’s ex (the ludicrously hot Penelope Cruz) arrives and needs to stay with him and Cristina while she recovers from some kind of breakdown. Or something.
And, that’s really all you need to know about the plot. Allen has set up this film as an exploration of love and sexuality, and the movie in its 96 minutes pops back and forth among the main characters as they deal with those issues. Woody Allen has pulled off an amazing feat – this is a movie about sex, including sexual situations between Cruz and Johannson – which still manages to be incredibly dull and boring. That takes a great deal of effort.
This is not an interesting movie, and, as is often the case with Allen, it’s a movie that takes itself far more seriously than it should.
Most of the performances are fine. Cruz won the best supporting actress Oscar for this. And, while she was fine, it’s hard to comprehend how that happened. There’s nothing earth shattering about what Cruz did in this film. Bardem is solid as the arguable center of the film. He gives a calm, confident performance that is believable. Hall is the most nuanced performer in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and comes across as the most believable. And filmmakers need to accept the fact that Lost in Translation was a fluke, and that Scarlett Johannson simply can not act. But she’s pretty, so whatever.
And that can really also be said for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It is a gorgeous film. It’s got a warm color palette that permeates the movie; the views of Spain are remarkable; and it’s filled with pretty, pretty people.
But, it’s a movie that is supposedly an exploration of human relationships that simply leaves us with no insights, and further furnishes an ending that crosses well into the territory of the absurd. It’s a dull journey with an asinine payoff. But, yeah, it’s pretty.
On the movie report card, I give Vicky Cristina Barcelona a C.
